Senate Republicans confirm nearly 50 of Trump's picks for energy, land management

Senate Republicans moved one step closer to clearing out the backlog of President Donald Trump's nominees.

The GOP confirmed 49 of Trump’s picks on Monday, a move that will have installed 60% of his civilian nominees. It’s also the fourth time Republicans have confirmed a slate of nominees in a batch since changing the Senate’s rules last year. 

Included in the latest batch are 20 different positions, including a dozen U.S. attorneys, several U.S. marshals, ambassadors and members of a variety of agencies, including the departments of War, Transportation, Energy, and others. 

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Also included in the group is Trump’s pick to lead the Bureau of Land Management and a former member of Congress, Stevan Pearce.

Senate Democrats for much of last year had blocked most nominees from getting confirmed. Typically, civilian nominees were often confirmed without actually having to take a full vote on the Senate floor.

That obstruction, led by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., in a bid to prevent Trump from molding the federal government to fit with his agenda, spurred Republicans to go nuclear and change the Senate’s rules.

That move, the fourth time that lawmakers have turned to the nuclear option in the Senate, lowered the threshold for certain picks to just a simple majority rather than the typical 60-vote threshold needed to overcome a filibuster.

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And it has proven a successful move for Republicans. Last year, they confirmed over 400 of Trump’s picks. 

That leapfrogged his first term total during the first year, having only gotten 323 confirmed. And it also blew past former President Joe Biden, who during the same time period had 365 nominees confirmed.  

Meanwhile, Republicans are also busy wrapping up work on another element of Trump’s agenda — funding immigration enforcement for the next three-and-a-half years. 

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Republicans are sprinting through the party-line budget reconciliation process in their bid to ram through a $72 billion funding package for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol by June 1.

Lawmakers have until the end of the week to wrap up the process, given that they’re scheduled for another recess next week for the Memorial Day holiday. 

But the package has hit some snags with the Senate’s rules referee, and some items, including $1 billion for security enhancements for Trump’s ballroom and funding for the Secret Service were stripped out.